My job and the joy of text

The Wall Street Journal has a nice article on the booming text messaging industry. I often struggle to describe my job to people who aren’t terribly hip to the whole text messaging thing. This article gives a taste of what is involved and what the market is like. Basically, I am one of the key enablers for all of this for T-Mobile. All of these campaigns pass through my hands before they go live for T-Mobile users. Here’s a taste of the type of growth we’re seeing:

In the U.K., revenue from phone and text-messaging services for TV programs came to about $457 million in 2005, compared with almost zero in 2000, according to an industry-funded regulatory body that tracks premium telecom services in that country. The U.S. market may be poised for similar growth. Americans sent 9.8 billion text messages in December 2005, up from 4.8 billion a year earlier, according to CTIA, the Wireless Association.

TV voting campaigns are just beginning to take off in popularity here in the States, and probably will become much more popular over the next year or two. However, the bulk of the money is to be made in selling content (ringtones, wallpapers, games, themes, etc.) for cellphones. It’s pretty interesting and exciting to have a front row seat watching this new market expand.